How can agricultural land be converted into settlement land?

The principle of designated land use

According to Russian legislation, the use of land is permitted only for its intended purpose. The regulatory regulation of their turnover will depend on the category to which the plots are classified. There are 7 categories in total: these are protected areas with water and forest resources; used for the construction of housing, administrative buildings and their service structures; reserve lands and objects subject to special protection.

These include agricultural lands, characterized by their location, isolated from the populated area, and exploitation in the interests of agriculture. They consist of land, forest shelterbelts and facilities used in the production of agricultural products and their storage. Roads and linear structures (power lines, oil/gas pipelines) can also be built in this territory to ensure the uninterrupted functioning of the industry without being transferred to another category. In this case, an approved reclamation project is required. Agricultural lands (vineyards, grazing areas, fruit trees) will be especially protected, and changing the type of use of which is prohibited.

There are 2 bans on transfer: highly productive agricultural lands (land) and those whose cadastral value is higher than 50% than the average for the region.

And the last, category 7, represents industrial and other special purpose lands. As a general rule, they are understood as those allocated in order to ensure the activities of enterprises and other industrial facilities. Industrial lands include those intended for the operation of ground road transport, railway rolling stock, etc., for space-related activities, for example, cosmodromes. How they are used depends on who owns them. Typically, these are line ministries, for example, energy or transport. The plots used for this purpose may belong to private individuals or companies, or be the property of the Russian Federation, municipalities and regional authorities. This category identifies lands that can only be owned by the state. So, these are plots intended to accommodate enterprises working for the country’s defense or in the field of nuclear energy.

Why convert agricultural land to industrial land?

The definition of industrial land is specified in the Land Code of the Russian Federation. According to current legislation, these are lands that are intended for the construction of industrial buildings and structures aimed at the production of industrial products and goods. Also included in the category of industrial land are areas where it is planned to extract minerals. As in other cases, the use of industrial land is regulated by the Land Code.

Industrial lands appear in two ways - either on the basis of old sites on which industrial facilities had previously operated. The difficulty of their development is that old unnecessary buildings and communications remain on them, which interfere with the creation of modern industrial infrastructure.

The second type of land is former agricultural land, located at a distance from populated areas and without any communications on its territory. As a rule, they require large financial investments, because... the entire industrial infrastructure here is created from scratch. But potential access to raw materials (if there are deposits), distance from populated areas and the possibility of expanding production capacity make agricultural land extremely attractive for conversion to the industrial category.

Transfer of land to another category

The regulatory framework in the closed list defines exceptional cases of changing the category of agricultural land to another:

Time limits on the exploitation of land plots, due to the need to restore contaminated or depleted soils.
Construction of power lines, laying of cables for communications and other linear structures with the obligatory provision of a reclamation project.
Application of a special protection regime to territories with objects located on them that have great cultural and historical significance and endowed with unique natural characteristics.
A shift in the boundaries of settlements due to the inclusion or, conversely, exclusion of new lands from the boundaries of settlements/urban formations.
Industrial facilities are located due to the lack of other options, but taking into account the fact that the value of land indicated in the cadastre does not exceed the average level in the district of the municipality or city.

In the option where land transfer is carried out, the price of the plot according to the cadastre, which is indicated in the Unified State Register, does not apply. A new assessment will be carried out by the cadastral chamber in accordance with the developed guidelines, as a result of which a report will be drawn up in triplicate. The resulting price of a land plot intended for transfer to another category will be compared with the average price indicator for the cadastre of the corresponding district.

The value determined in this way is not entered into Rosreestr, but is stored only in reporting materials.

How to challenge a refusal to transfer agricultural land to industrial land?

Before filing a claim or statement of claim, it is important to understand whether the refusal to transfer an agricultural land plot to industrial land was justified. To do this you need:

check the completeness of the documents submitted to the authorities;
study the legislation for grounds for refusal;
find out whether it is possible to transfer a specific agricultural plot to another category;
check that there are no prohibitions on this procedure;
order an environmental assessment if the grounds for refusal refer to deterioration in the quality of the land.

All this will help to challenge an unlawful decision. It is also necessary to know the stages of the procedure and its sequence. This way you can identify violations and refer to them in case of refusal.

The complaint should be addressed to the authority that issued a negative response to the application. In this document, it is important to indicate the detected violations or inconsistencies with the provisions of the law. When a complaint is filed, a deadline is set for responding to it. In order for this period to be tracked, the claim must be sent by registered mail with return receipt requested, or it must be registered during a personal visit.

When the claim procedure does not work, legal proceedings begin. The content of the claim depends on the grounds presented in the refusal. But its structure will be approximately the same in all situations:

references to legal norms;
names of the parties to the proceedings;
information about the site;
analysis of the reasons given;
claim.

If registration of changes in Rosreestr is refused, it is necessary to demand that the refusal be canceled and the information be entered into the Unified State Register of Real Estate. If a negative answer was given at the stage of consideration of papers in the municipality, you must ask for such a decision to be declared illegal.

In your claim, be sure to refer to the results of the pre-trial procedure. The response of the authorized body to the claim, or the document itself with the date of delivery to the defendant, should be attached to the application. Other documentation includes the initial refusal, papers for the site, confirmation of rights to it, the results of the examination, if any other approvals were carried out. If everything is done correctly, the decision will be made in your favor. If there is the slightest mistake, the claim will be denied, and you will have to appeal this decision to other authorities.

Necessary documents for changing the legal regime

In order to transfer land from agricultural to industrial purposes, the interested party draws up a petition for transfer to the appropriate body vested with powers giving him the right to make a decision. Depending on the location of the site, be it the territory of the federation or a region, its relevant authorities develop requirements for processing the application and a list of attached documentation.

What agricultural land cannot be converted into industrial land?

Not all agricultural plots can be transferred to the category of industrial land. There are restrictions established by law and the situation in general. There are two types of sites in respect of which a final ban on changing the category is imposed:

Agricultural land where particularly valuable crops are grown, or areas that are particularly productive for agriculture;
Plots with a cadastral value half as high as the average cadastral price for the area where the land is located.

The reason for refusal may be the inability to pass one of the many approvals: Ministry of Agriculture, Rospotrebnadzor, Rosaviation, Rosnedra, Rosleskhoz, etc.

It will not be possible to transfer land partially or completely located in a water protection or environmental protection zone, a protection zone of cultural and archaeological heritage sites.

Geobureau specialists offer you their services for a preliminary assessment of the possibility of transferring a land plot to industrial use, passing all necessary approvals or completely carrying out work to change the category of a land plot.

Before submitting an application to transfer the plot to industrial land, you should check the cadastral value and find out the value of the plot for agricultural activities. It is also worth ordering an environmental assessment. It will not be possible to change the category if the experts have issued a negative conclusion.

The presence of a ban on the transfer of agricultural land to industrial land is another reason for the refusal to carry out such a procedure. Unless otherwise provided by law or the situation, transfer of the remaining plots to the industrial category is possible, but with some reservations. If the ownership of land is disputed in court, such an allotment cannot be transferred to another category.

Depending on the situation, there may be other grounds for prohibiting a change in the purpose of the territory. For example, such a reason may be the loss of land value, deterioration of its quality characteristics, pollution after conversion to industrial land. To find out which agricultural plot can be converted into industrial land and which cannot, please consult the lawyers of our company. They will check the area, find out the reasons for the ban and help eliminate them, if possible.

In what cases can they refuse and what to do about it?

If the application is submitted by an inappropriate person, or the attached documents do not comply with the standards, the application is rejected without consideration within one month. Reasons for transferring agricultural land to another category :

if the environmental assessment required by law gave a negative result;
if Russian legislation has a direct prohibition or restriction on the translation procedure;
if the declared purpose does not correspond to the approved territorial planning documentation.

The decision may be appealed in court within three months from the date the applicant receives the response; If the deadline is missed for a good reason, the act of refusal can be appealed outside this period. The law does not provide a clear indication of whether the return of a petition without consideration is subject to appeal in court.